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Interrogations Audit Reveals Agency Split

By Mark Impomeni
May 22nd 2008 10:15AM

Filed Under:eBush Administration, Democrats, Featured Stories, Terror

An audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigations' participation in terrorist detainee interrogations produced by the Justice Department shows a diverging view of the interrogations between FBI and Central Intelligence Agency interrogators. The 370-page report documents the complaints of agents and concerns of top FBI officials early on in the Administration's interrogation program. Those concerns were made known inside the White House by top Justice Department and FBI officials as the Administration struggled with itself to establish the program's legitimacy, according to the report.

The report contains no new information about the interrogations program itself, but it does shed light on the root causes of the interagency battle between the FBI and CIA over interrogations. According to the report, FBI agents present for some early interrogations were understandably concerned with so-called harsh interrogations techniques because of the potential their use had to taint future criminal cases against the detainees; while the CIA was primarily concerned with getting information quickly from high-value detainees about possible future attacks in the wake of September 11th. The friction between the two motivations, preserving criminal cases and extracting actionable intelligence, has never been fully addressed and continues to vex Administration officials as the Bush Administration seeks to shut down the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the report proved that detainee abuse was widespread.
"Some have suggested that the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody was simply the result of a few bad apples acting on their own. The report released today by the Department of Justice Inspector General is proof that that is simply not true. The IG found that scores of FBI agents observed the use of harsh interrogation techniques in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay."
Meanwhile, Administration officials downplayed the report's significance. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman stressed that the report referred to the early days of the interrogation program and that the procedures in use have been modified since then. "There is nothing new here," he said. "The department has been operating for a number of years now with new and improved guidance with respect to detention operations and interrogation procedures." A State Department spokesman was similarly dismissive, saying that the allegation contained in the report were, "pretty vague."

Levin's un-nuanced view of the report displays a lack of critical thinking about the issues surrounding information gathering in the war on terror. While the United States should not torture captives unless it is absolutely necessary to help save a substantial number of lives in the immediate term, it is far from established that stress positions and sleep deprivation constitutes torture. The war on terror is not a law enforcement operation, nor is it a conventional war. The report depicts an Administration and a Federal government struggling in good faith to wrestle the complex issues of detainee treatment and to apply often conflicting legal standards. Levin's complaint does nothing to assist in that struggle, but it does score some cheap political points for his party.

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